


call and response

by glassedplanets



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Identity Reval, M/M, Season of the Drifter, Slight Speculation for Year 4/Beyond Light, The Russian Roulette Of Shin's Secret Identities, Thorn (Destiny)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:06:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24956557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassedplanets/pseuds/glassedplanets
Summary: Things tend to go astray on Titan: wayward Guardians, the Light, and long-laid plans.
Relationships: The Drifter/Shin Malphur
Comments: 7
Kudos: 70





	call and response

**Author's Note:**

> set somewhere nebulously just before season of the drifter and also fudging the thorn quest timeline just a smidge. timelines don't have to matter! my city now. 
> 
> thank you key and ghost for looking over this!

Dust-choked air prickles uncomfortably at Shin’s consciousness, an unnatural haze that’s not quite cold enough to numb, not quite warm enough to heat, almost thick enough to swim in. Shin tamps down on the way the air stained with unspoken magic here calls to his bones, makes his chest ache, and he forges on.

The trek across the Rig and down into its depths had been fine enough, if trying, thanks to Drifter’s insistence on attempting to goad him into either a bad mood or a firefight. No telling which. They haven’t run into many Hive here so far, either, save for quiet worms burrowing deep at the sound of footsteps; whether that was the work of Drifter’s “friend” or a different kind of suspicious absence is still up in the air.

He glances back. The hissing exit wound punched through the Rig’s hull leading back up to the surface is nothing but a distant waypoint, marking a small safe zone deep in some old warrens that’s still got the faintest trickle of Light bleeding in. Drifter’s serving as a midpoint in case Shin needs a rez, which is irritating, because it’s _Drifter_ who lost track of a friend or informant or supplier or what the fuck ever, and yet it’s Shin who’s forging deeper and deeper into this Hive-choked Arcology, ears and eyes and radar pricked for any sign of life. Shin can still feel him, an odd, muted Light some-few-hundred feet back, and he wonders whether he should or shouldn’t be finding comfort in it.

A small shift of movement ahead makes him slow down, hand drifting towards his holster. He’s trying one of Drifter’s new cannons this time around in his unending search for a replacement, and the grip is still unfamiliar as he brushes his fingers against it.

The movement is chased by the soft sound of chitin scraping this time. Shin feels the instinct to reach for a knife, light a Solar flare along its edge, but another urge shuts it down completely, compels him to reach for a different knife. He quells it and rests his palm on the hand cannon’s grip instead.

The third time he sees motion, an entirely different instinct kicks in, and Shin draws and fires in a smooth arc, gun kicking solidly back into his hand. Solid. Nicely stable. Drifter probably shoved a hip-fire counterweight in there somewhere. He doesn’t register what it is he’s shot until smoke blooms in the empty air ahead of him, crackling with familiar energy, and he shifts his focus off the gun. There’ll be time for that later.

“Don’t shoot, Hunter,” he calls on open broadcast, and holsters the cannon.

All he gets in response is a ragged, crackling exhale over the line.

He approaches without anything more thrown at him, though, and comes across a Hunter tucked up against a beam made unintelligible by chitinous growth, sniper rifle across her lap – one of Drifter’s, he notes – and Ghost hidden away. She's holding her arm awkwardly against her side and her cloak is streaked with something dark and viscous, leg tenderly elevated on a nearby console, its display still flickering bravely.

“You injured?”

Carefully, she nods. She’s tense under his gaze even in spite of her injured, Lightless lethargy, and Shin tries to assess what’s going on – he’s not acting hostile, _she’s_ the one who threw a smoke bomb at him, however justified it may have been – when there's a soft, dark pull on Shin's attention, like a dead pixel on his HUD, like something just at the corner of his eye.

Something is clipped to her thigh, whispering softly, and Shin feels all the Light in him twist as dim light flickers over the unmistakable silhouette of Thorn.

She inhales sharply when Shin reaches for it in spite of himself, that abyss greeting him like an old friend, and she whispers, "Don't."

"It's okay," Shin murmurs back.

The Guardian – _his_ Guardian, Drifter's favorite, hero of the Red War, Cayde's vengeance – flattens herself back against the beam, still tense, and a weak thread of Void Light trickles into her palm, defensive and cold.

"It's okay," Shin repeats, more quietly, and he lays his hand over hers. _I know this_ , he wants to say. _I know you. I believe in you. I know you can do this._ The Void curls softly between them, twining like cold water around their palms. "I'm old friends with that particular thing."

“Dredgen?” she asks, voice hoarse, and then, falling to a raspy whisper, “...Shadow?”

Shin doesn’t answer. He can’t. He never intended for them to meet, never wanted to have this conversation except in all the meticulous letters he’s penned, and instead he’s watching her cling to the last of her Light, wounded and alone in the depths of a half-sunk rig held in the claws of a much higher power, waiting to see if the one person she sent a distress call to will do anything to help her. Clinging to a thread of hope.

“Drifter’s waiting at that waypoint,” he says instead, adding her to their fireteam roster and marking it on their HUD, but he doesn’t patch Drifter into their comms yet. There’s far too much interference down here, anyways. “But this–” He squeezes her hand, as gentle and as reassuring as he can, fingertips curling inches away from that whispering core. “–is between you and me. You have my word.”

He wonders whether she understands just how much he means by that. Her helmet is unreadable, but she stares at him for a long time before slowly nodding.

"Can you stand?" he asks, shifting back onto his heels.

She grunts, pushes herself up a few inches on a shaking hand, and then gives up with a sigh.

"Here." Shin stands and offers his hand down to her, and her fingers still feel like the cold-snap numbness of the Void when she wraps them around his wrist in turn. “Drifter has a transmat beacon. You'll take that out."

He loops her arm around his shoulder and tugs her upright with some difficulty; she’s injured and exhausted and desperately in need of Light, and he gives her what he can of his own as they trudge carefully out of this warren towards the waypoint Shin has marked. Something about the slow trickle of Void collecting around her is reassuring; something about the way she’s gathering up her Light again makes it feel like she’s coming home. Shin feels the faint edges of Void come together within him, too, responding to the call of her Light.

“Name?” she asks curiously, once they’ve taken a few shaky steps and found a rhythm.

Shin blows out a staticky breath.

“I’m just a renegade Hunter, same as you,” he replies.

She lets out a breathy, knowing laugh and nods again, and the rustle her cloak makes echoes softly as they slowly shuffle on.

The pinprick marking Drifter on his HUD glimmers dully, then starts to move right as his – their – (how unfortunate) – Hunter’s legs start to give, and Shin starts to wonder if he’ll be able to rez her any time soon down here.

He catches the faint glint of a scope, first, yards and yards away, and his hand snaps automatically to the holster on his thigh before his mind catches up and puts familiar pieces together. He tests the comm line; still overloaded with humming interference, even though he’s close enough for a shout to carry if he really wanted it to.

 _Or a whisper_ , some dark curl at the back of his mind adds.

Drifter’s odd, bulky shape slips out from behind a wall, helmet gleaming in the dim crowded neon of this hall, and the knot in Shin’s chest eases, just slightly, even as the irritation winding his jaw shut grows by the second.

Drifter pointedly holsters his rifle, points at the Guardian, and shouts, “ _You!_ ”

Their Hunter sighs and hangs her head. Shin does his best to keep her mostly vertical as Drifter practically stomps his way towards them across wild-growth ferns and other plants that might once have been only decorative, his fists clenched.

“The hell’re you doin’ all the way down here, sister?” Drifter asks when he’s finally close enough to be heard, but he doesn’t quite manage to finish his sentence before the Guardian topples out of Shin’s supporting arm and right into Drifter, slumping against his shoulder like she knows it’s some kind of apology. Shin’s skin prickles with something he does not want to name.

“Bounties,” she mumbles, almost incomprehensible over warbling comms, and it’s either the worst lie or best excuse Shin’s ever heard.

“Bullshit,” Drifter snaps, though it’s missing too much vitriol to be properly snide. Shin would know, he realizes. The back of his neck continues to prickle. “I paid you good Glimmer to scout the surface, not crawl halfway up Savathûn’s ass.”

“We should move,” Shin says, brusquely, not watching the way Drifter’s hand squeezes her shoulder so easily in reassurance. Speak of this particular devil and she may be less likely to appear, but there’s been movement under their feet. Quiet and slow, but steady.

Their Hunter straightens and tests her injured leg experimentally. Drifter keeps a steadying hand on her arm until she nods halfway to herself, head tipped down, and gingerly braces her sniper rifle against the crook of her elbow.

“Thanks,” she says, so quietly Shin almost misses it. Drifter waves his hand dismissively but she catches that hand between both of hers and squeezes, shields rippling with the intensity of her grip, and she stares Drifter down so thoroughly he has no choice but to meet her helmeted gaze. “Drifter. Thanks.”

She turns away before Drifter can say anything. Behind her, the ancient neon lighting this hall under the Arboretum streams along a strip of metallic inlay on Drifter’s helmet as he looks down at her hip, then it flashes as he jerks his head up to stare at Shin over her shoulder. Shin blocks incoming communications on his line as their Hunter walks stiffly over to him, helmet raised defiantly.

“Thanks,” she repeats again, and reaches out to fix his hood where it drapes against his shoulders, straightens out a snag so it falls neatly down his back, and then, briefly, she fits her hand against the side of his helmet.

Shin is twelve years old again, his father's hand gently patting his cheek, and he is sixteen years old, burning with embarrassment and pride as Jaren shows him how to wear a cloak properly after catching him draping sheets around his shoulders, and he is ageless, standing in a Golden Age bubble in the depths of Titan’s seas with this Guardian offering something so deeply precious to a complete stranger without any hesitation.

"Get outta here, sister," Drifter grunts over the fireteam channel, ripping Shin back into reality. He tosses the transmat beacon to her and she catches it, only a little awkwardly. Drifter waves a hand at her again. “C’mon, kid. Scram.”

She glances at Shin one more time, then gives Drifter another, longer look, and then she’s gone in a glittering wash of data.

“The fuck was that all about?” Drifter asks immediately, cutting her out of their fireteam comm line, and his voice is low and dangerous.

“What?” Shin replies, wary.

"You know what." Drifter takes a step closer and draws the rifle off of his back. Shin takes a step back and settles a palm on his hand cannon. Under his heels, chitin cracks softly and exhales something that might have been a whisper. "The hell kinda game you playin' with her?"

It wasn't supposed to be like this – not any of it, not ever – but Shin resigns himself, quickly and neatly, to the fact that this is how it'll be. He takes his hand off the holster and raises it slowly, palm out.

"She made her choices," he says carefully. "I won't—”

"Bullshit," Drifter says, very quietly. All the hair at Shin's nape stands up straight. It takes all of Shin's strength to fight his instincts and stand his ground as Drifter walks up to him, the rifle transmatting back out of his hands, and he wraps an iron fist into the clasp of Shin's cloak, knuckles brushing against his throat. "What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?”

Anger simmers through him, colder than the heavy pressing air, silent as Void. He stares at Drifter, wordless. There’s nothing he could say to explain himself. The truth would be pointless. Lies— god, he’s told enough. And he doesn’t owe Drifter an explanation, anyways. Just like Drifter doesn’t owe him shit either. They both know this.

All he can think about is the echo of a hand laid gently against his helmet. An unbidden whisper unfurls alongside the thought, and Shin pushes it away before it can get any further than a faint breath against his thoughts.

“Alright,” Drifter snarls. “Fine. However it is you live with yourself, good luck with it, brother.” His hand uncurls from Shin’s cloak. “I’m gettin’ out of here. Come with me, or don’t.”

Shin catalogues the comfortable slide of his Light along the pervasive Darkness here as he turns away, swimming together in easy balance. He feels it like a word at the back of his throat, like a phrase in his parents' tongue he knows intimately but cannot replicate without a clumsiness that would betray him.

Jealousy takes root in his chest, ugly and familiar. He tries to prune it with awe. Fails. Settles instead for putting it out of mind. Fails that as well.

“Drifter,” he snaps. Drifter pauses but doesn’t turn, his posture monolithic and unyielding. Shin’s next words come out quieter than he intends. “What she’s doing… she needs to understand.”

Drifter turns at this with a scoff.

“Understand what? That you’re settin’ her up?”

“No.” Leather squeaks as Shin flexes his fingers in a fist, and fades into soft whispers that roll down his spine. “That she can wield Thorn.”

Drifter is silent. Flickering neon light filters dimly through the thick, moth-choked air.

He’s waiting, Shin realizes.

“She can do it,” he continues, “without submitting. In the face of what’s coming–”

“I know what’s coming,” Drifter says sharply. There’s a thrum to his voice closer to fear than Shin’s ever heard. “And your games got nothin’ to do with it.”

“This has _everything_ to do with what’s coming.”

Drifter barks out a dry, mirthless laugh, like a death rattle.

“Oh yeah? What’s coming, then? Shin Malphur’s comin’ to claim her Light, ‘cause she crossed a line he doesn’t like?” He takes a step closer. His presence is pressing; Shin feels his nerves light with a jump like the thrill of discovery, like the cool shocking sink into Void. Light flares at his fingertips as Drifter leans forward. Not Solar. “Or is Dredgen Vale comin’ to recruit?”

Silence.

Shin feels his pulse thunder somewhere in his throat. His head is empty of everything save the pervasive shadow gathering at the edges, numbing every scrambling attempt to retort; to lie, to tell the truth, to sidestep the conversation.

But there’s nothing.

“Alright,” Drifter murmurs. “Vale, then. Fuck you.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” Shin tries, his final defense, neither lie nor truth nor sidestep, and immediately he wants to choke the words back down.

"Don't insult me, Shin," Drifter says, voice cold, without a trace of his usual flippancy. "You really think I wouldn't put the pieces together?"

Shin’s ears ring. It’s almost a welcome reprieve from the hum of Hive magic, the edge of whisper that’s been haunting him. He struggles for another beat before words spill out of his mouth, unbidden.

"And you still—" Shin stops, pulled up short. Still _what_ , exactly? Still played along? Still let him lie? Still fucked him, kissed him, let him stay?

Drifter shifts uneasily, fingers flexing around the barrel of his rifle.

"Yeah," he says, distinctly uncomfortable. "I still."

Silence, thick and choking like the air around them, fills the scant few inches of space between them. Shin doesn’t know what to say now. What prompted him to say _that_. He swallows down every burning thing that slinks up his throat, waiting its turn to be spoken as truth.

And Drifter–

Drifter knows what’s coming. He knows what’s _coming?_ That doesn’t make sense. Drifter isn’t a herald of some coming apocalypse; he’s just a man, flawed enough, scared enough, jaded enough, _enough_ to discard every Lightforsaken wordsmith philosopher who’d ever waxed poetic about Light and Darkness and take both into his hands like neither mattered.

The prickle crawls back to its home on Shin’s nape.

He’s been wrong before. He could be wrong again.

* * *

Shin’s outline bends and warps in the stinking methane rain that drums against Titan's surface, shadows crawling up his legs with each flash of lightning.

Some weather for revelations. Or something.

Drifter is annoyed, more than anything. Took Shin the fuck long enough to stop with the pretenses. Mostly, he wishes it hadn’t been at the expense of his Hunter. The kid doesn’t need more shit weighing on her, not with the way he still sees that crack of angry grief in Gambit sometimes.

Drifter thinks of the way their Hunter had fussed over him without a second thought: fixing his cloak, giving him a subtle once-over for injuries that he's sure Shin missed. No surprise there, though. Shin's always had a particular myopia where he himself is concerned. Call _that_ far-sightedness in the face of all his plans.

She's a good kid. Shin's voice had rung true, earlier, for whatever _that_ 's worth – he's not trying to kill her. Yet. Not unless she throws herself into that abyss. But as long as Drifter runs Gambit, all the Guardians in this system will get a little taste of Darkness. Just enough to tempt and then satisfy, enough that it'll melt on the tongue and let the taste linger long enough for the thrill of something forbidden to quiet.

And, well. At least it was mostly satisfying to finally see Shin give it up. He doesn’t look half-bad, dressed in Void and cold as ice instead of something that’ll vaporize. Nice change.

"You comin' aboard?" Drifter asks, nudging the transmat beacon with the side of his boot. Shin turns away from the slow rolling waves, eyes sharp.

"Didn't think I'd be welcome," he replies carefully.

Drifter clicks his tongue dismissively.

"You still owe me," he says.

"Oh?" Shin takes a step closer; his fingertips twitch, just enough to draw Drifter's attention, and his eyes darken just a shade. There's something in the movement that's not quite hesitant, not quite careful. Like he knows he's fucked up and this is damage control. Like he's treading lightly. Drifter's skin crawls, even as his body responds to Shin's proximity like the simple machine it is.

"Mind outta the gutter," Drifter says, though there's a damning lack of bite to it. Shin slinks another half-step closer, then another. "Sloane agreed to lease me a slice of her Rig."

"New arena?" Shin asks. His hand wanders towards Drifter's belt, and Drifter, damning himself to the depths of space, lets him.

" _This_ ," Drifter says, tipping his head back out of the range of Shin's gently parted lips and the dark focus in his eyes, "ain't the favor, hero. Help me clear the rest of the Rig and we're square."

"For now," Shin replies simply.

Things get tangled when they head back to the Derelict for ammo and some fresh Light siphoned off the Motes that Drifter has banked; this time, Shin doesn’t try to hide the little wisps of Darkness that curl up around his wrists and sink into his skin. His defiance is certain, but careful. It’s insulting.

Drifter pushes him into their usual rhythm, their familiar lack of care or forethought. Shin takes the bait, and bites hard. Eager. This is the closest to submission he’s ever seen Shin, and it’s infuriating. He doesn’t want this to be a meager apology; he’s lived with this truth for months and wants the thrill he’s always chased when it comes to Shin, the Renegade, and all his other shrouds. So he pushes, in all the ways he knows how, and when Shin finally snaps and pushes back Drifter laughs until it turns into gasps that Shin eats up one by one.

Shin touches him with Void-cold hands, does it relentless and mean and all the other things Drifter has come to expect, but the core-deep, stinging touch of Stasis at his wrist is such a shock that he’s nearly jerked all the way out of his angry, pleasurable haze – and then he’s pulled right back in as familiar dark satisfaction curls Shin’s lip, his teeth flashing, and rime-dusted fingers rasp between Drifter’s for a moment of pressure before he loses sensation entirely. From there it’s a haze of sensation so cold that Drifter feels like he’s burning up at every touch, and isn’t that it’s own form of irony, he thinks, as his breath sweeps glittering frost over Shin’s shoulder and he touches Shin right back, just as mercilessly, until his shivers are entirely unrelated to the frost crystallizing their sweat.

Heat sinks slowly back into the room, not long after Shin disentangles himself from the terrible Gordian knot of their limbs with a soft rasping slide of hoar-limned skin on skin. The taste of Void slinks out of the air, pushed aside gently by Shin’s usual dry, Solar heat. Sensation returns to Drifter’s hands too, eventually, and yet he can’t shake the phantom feeling of something filling the spaces between his fingers. It’s been a long time since he last felt the touch of Darkness, _real_ Darkness, on his skin.

"How'd you know?" Shin murmurs after Drifter’s lost track of time, and there's a note in his voice so deeply unfamiliar that it pulls Drifter out of the comfortable haze he's been drowsing in.

Shin is weaving a spark of Solar light between his knuckles, slow and languid, but it's a restless motion anyway. Unsettled. Off-balance.

"Clocked the Renegade for Zyre Orsa the second you opened your mouth," Drifter says, and closes his eyes. He feels Shin stiffen next to him in the faint brush of their shoulders, the slight discharge of heat. "Shin Malphur, though, that took a bit of thinkin'."

There's a quiet rustle, a prickle of heat; Shin is probably looking at him. Drifter resists the temptation to crack his eyes open.

"Shin was the only piece that didn't fit," he continues. Shin hums quietly, maybe in displeasure. "The way you carried on sometimes, real careful what you said about _The Man_ , workin' theory was that Shin Malphur and Dredgen Vale were fucking. Or real nasty exes."

Shin makes a strangled noise at that, and Drifter _does_ crack his eyes open then to see Shin staring determinedly at the ceiling, face flushed, lips twisted. Drifter hadn't noticed the back of Shin's other hand sprawled carelessly against his side, and it very nearly burns. Drifter smiles at him, all teeth, then settles his head back to where it was, nearly comfortable save for the Light-fueled furnace next to him.

Shin is silent, still playing with that little knot of Light round his fingers. The restlessness is still there, but quieted, just a bit. Not quite almost asleep, but maybe close to it, judging by the heavy fall of his lashes.

"And what did you think," Shin finally murmurs, "of Shin Malphur—”

"—bein' a Dredgen?" Drifter interrupts unceremoniously. "Makes sense. Obsession ain't the Lightest thing in the system. Hell, take old Three Eyes. She works with the Vanguard, sure, but she's got Darkness in her just as surely as she's lost her Ghost."

"Eris?" Shin's still restless. Fabric whispers between them. “She's… different."

"From you? No shit." Drifter pushes himself up on one elbow. Dim light refracts softly through all the frost lining this ramshackle room, and if Drifter thinks that does something for the angles of Shin's face, that's between him and his own conscience. "You wanna know what the difference is?"

"What," Shin starts, voice curling low, and _there's_ that note of Orsa, of Vale he's been hiding all this time, "she's right for hating the Hive, and I'm wrong for studying them? Her suffering is better or worse or less justified or more proper than mine?" Flint shines hard in Shin's eyes. "Loss ain't something special only a few people get to experience. You should know better than that."

"No," Drifter fires back. "You got it all wrong. _That_ 's the difference. It's not about what any of us have lived through. Hell, that'd make a thousand people more _Dredgen_ than you. You're a fuckin' fool fifty times over. Figured _that_ out when I left your Hive book club."

"Then what," Shin grinds out through audibly gritted teeth. The spark is gone from between his fingers; it's colder in the room, all of Shin's light drawing in. Drifter stares down at him.

"Darkness is a tool, Shin. You _use_ it. You don't try to become it."

Abruptly – so much so that it's nearly a shock – warmth blooms back through the air, like Shin's suddenly lost all control over his Light. And for a split second, Drifter thinks that this is it: this is Shin Malphur, this is Zyre Orsa, this is Dredgen Vale coming to collect, that he's served his purpose in Shin's scheme and this death will be his last.

But then the shock ripples across Shin's face, just briefly, and cold incredulous dread starts to curl somewhere in his chest instead.

"You didn't think," Drifter says. "You sorry son of a bitch. It never occurred to you."

"No," Shin says, "no, I knew." Drifter is prepared to swallow down another one of this man's incandescent burning lies, but instead the words lie heavy between them, lingering with the weight of truth.

And then Shin does something unexpected: he rolls over and brackets Drifter between his forearms, one thigh nudging between Drifter's as he props himself up and stares down.

The way Shin's looking at him doesn't so much remind Drifter that Shin's a Hunter as much as it reminds him that he _hunts_. And oh, does he feel it, in the way that Shin's Light chokes out all the oxygen between them, eyes dark and locked on him like Shin's nothing more than a living weapon, taking aim.

"I knew," Shin repeats, quieter, and his oppressive presence peels back like it's nothing more than a silk between them. His eyes flicker down to Drifter's mouth. "Not all tools fit every hand. Not everyone can adapt."

Stunningly close to the mark, Shin is. He's not lying, at least. That's some kind of improvement. Shin might know that, but it's like he– it's almost as if he doesn't—

The stubble dusting Shin's cheek catches on his beard, and Shin’s thigh shifts pointedly against his own. Soft breaths warm the corner of his mouth.

"Nuh-uh. Can't fuck your way outta this conversation." Drifter tips his chin up out of the reach of Shin's lips, and his mouth brushes up against the tip of Shin's nose in the process; a brief scowl flits across Shin's face.

"Wasn't gonna."

"Liar," Drifter says quietly. A shadow of that scowl flickers through Shin's eyes before settling into something more like satisfaction, but not quite there, either.

"Yeah," Shin says, "I am."

He leans down and takes what Drifter’s been denying him, brushes his mouth just barely against Drifter’s in the world’s worst mockery of every snarling, biting, brutal kiss they’ve ever shared. Drifter nearly shivers at the sensation of Shin touching him only here, only like this, and the oddity would be uncomfortable if he were any further from sleep’s easy lull. If he opens his mouth to that whisper of pressure, it’s only an instinctive reaction.

With a sigh, Shin shifts back to where he'd been before and brings cool air in his wake. Silence blooms between them as Shin settles, inching closer to comfort but missing the mark anyway. Silence is good. Silence means this conversation is over, and they don’t have to go over any of this again. Means Drifter doesn’t have to think of all the other names he’s gone by, all the other names he knows Shin by. Means he can go back to prepping Prime, planning new arenas, polishing up his blueprints. Clearing off the Rig is the final piece, really; once he can bully Shin into doing it for him, then he can get a crew together for the first Prime match. Maybe Joxer, and that Warlock. Shin as a plant, dressed in hungry red. Yeah, that’d be good. Real good.

"Hey, why me, anyways?" Drifter asks the ceiling, frowning. "Or was I just the unlucky son of a bitch who came up with Gambit first?"

"You're the only one who could," Shin says, and the faint slur to his words belies the victory of his exhaustion.

"Could _what?_ " Silence stretches between them. Shin's breaths grow long, and then heavy. "Shin?"

Drifter turns his head to watch Shin's breath curl faintly in the cold air, follows the way shadows cling heavy to the bruises under his eyes and the furrow between his brows. He hesitates far too little before raising a heavy hand to rub the knotted line of Shin's brows with the edge of his thumb, to annoy him, to wake him, to scrub that look off his face.

Shin cracks one bleary eye open and catches his hand as he pulls it away, too-warm palm circling around the jut of Drifter's wrist, and then his eyes slide shut again and he takes a heavy, slow breath.

Drifter tests Shin's grip. It's loose around his wrist. Not a twitch from Shin. Asleep, then. Nothin' for it but to wait 'til dawn.

"Alright," Drifter mutters.

Exhaustion has its inexorable claws in him too, and like this, it's so easy to submit even in spite of the howling thing in his chest, the creeping dark at the edges of his mind where numbers scurry into nonagenate shapes.

Shin submits too, to gravity; his head curling in by an infuriating degree, just close enough to make Drifter think he can feel the weight of him, far enough that the only thing crossing the chasm between them is Shin's warm breath, heavy with his usual Solar Light, familiarly feverish.

There’ll be a time for ice. Drifter’s just glad it hasn’t come yet.


End file.
